Steerpike

Today Jeremy Corbyn has cancelled his attendance at what would have been his first meeting of the Queen's Privy Council due to 'prior commitments'. Of course naysayers have been quick to jump on this, with Alan Duncan claiming that Corbyn snubbing his first chance to be sworn in suggests that he is not a serious political figure. As for the Corbynistas praising their leader for sticking to his republican values by giving Her Majesty a miss, they would do well to remember that another politican has a far more impressive track record when it comes to snubbing the Queen. During Nick Clegg's time as Deputy Prime Minister, he managed to earn himself a reputation for repeatedly snubbing Her Majesty.

In David Cameron's conference speech this lunchtime, the Prime Minister spoke about a voter who had reached out to him ahead of the election. He said that it was never too late to vote Tory given that an 82-year-old man by the name of Bernard Harris had written to him and said that despite being a traditional Labour voter he would be voting Conservative. Why? Well, he had realised that the Labour party does not serve the working class. While Cameron had hoped Harris's letter would serve as proof that today's Labour voters are abandoning their old party for his, he may need to think again. It has since transpired that Harris is actually a regular Tory voter.

This week it was reported that Robert Peston is leaving his role as the BBC's economics editor to join ITV as their political editor. As part of the new job, he is expected to be the host of a Sunday morning politics programme which the broadcaster hopes will rival The Andrew Marr Show. Unsurprisingly the news does not appear to have gone down too well with some members of the Beeb. Stephen Walker, the BBC Northern Ireland Political Correspondent, has shared a photo of a sign outside a BBC press area at Tory conference which has been 'edited' to ban Peston from entering. https://twitter.com/StepWalkTV/status/651359185083465728 Hopefully Peston's new colleagues at ITV will be more welcoming.

Oh dear. With the People's Assembly organising a week of protests to coincide with the Tory conference, things have got off to a bad start today as protesters have turned their attention to the journalists covering the event. Channel 4's Michael Crick says that a protester shouted 'Tory scum' in his direction, before spitting in his hair: https://twitter.com/MichaelLCrick/status/650701534536314881 https://twitter.com/KateEMcCann/status/650663436184088577 The journalists were then led away into a corner while police tried to deal protesters: https://twitter.

With Zac Goldsmith today announced as the Conservative candidate for the 2015 London mayoral race, the Tory MP will now face Sadiq Khan in the race to succeed Boris Johnson as mayor. However, one man who feels he should not be forgotten as a contender is George Galloway. Galloway -- who is running as an independent candidate for mayor -- thinks that there is a gap in the market for him in the race, as Labour's Sadiq Khan is just not up to it. Speaking on the Daily Politics, Galloway said that while he was disappointed that Tessa Jowell is not Labour's candidate – given that she differs from him more politically than Khan – Khan is still no real threat to his own bid. Why?

In Jeremy Corbyn's conference speech, the Labour leader claimed that it was time young people found their fizz. 'Young people and older people are fizzing with ideas. Let’s give them the space for that fizz to explode into the joy,' he said optimistically. So Mr S is glad to say that Corbyn looks like he may have found his own fizz. On his trip to Scotland today, the Labour leader was gifted a bottle of Irn Bru by Kezia Dugdale, the leader of Scottish Labour. The gift of the drink which is popular in Scotland came after Corbyn declined the offer of a can of the drink from a Buzzfeed journalist this morning.

Jeremy Corbyn has come under increased scrutiny today after Mr S's colleague Alex Massie revealed that parts of his conference speech were taken from a four-year old reject speech by the writer Richard Heller. The Labour press office claim that their straight talking leader approached Heller 'because JC thought some of his material captured what he wanted to say'. However, given that Heller suggested Ed Miliband use the speech four years ago, it hardly epitomises Corbyn's so-called 'new kind of politics'. With the party playing the incident down, one Labour member is at least feeling more forthcoming.